NDC demands arrest of Bryan Acheampong over treasonable comment

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described as reckless and treasonable, a public declaration by Agriculture minister Bryan Acheampong that the governing New Patriotic Party will never hand over power to the NDC in the 2024 polls.

The Abetifi MP made the comment after a post-walk event at Mpraeso in the Eastern Region om Saturday, 8 April 2023.

He also warned that if the NDC dare try to use “threats, foolishness and violence” in the 2024 polls, “we will show them that we have the men.”

Mr Acheampong’s comment has been condemned by the ranking member of the defence and interior committee of parliament, Mr James Agalga, who demanded that IGP George Akuffo Dampare cause the arrest of the former minister of state in charge of national security.

The NDC, as a party, is adding its voice to that call.

In a statement signed by general secretary Fifi Kwetey on Sunday, 9 April 2023, the party said just as the police service was quick to cause the arrest of its Suame constituency executive who said killing a few NPP supporters for former President John Mahama was OK, the IGP should, in like manner, have Mr Acheampong arrested.

Read the NDC’s full statement below:

PRESS STATEMENT

For Immediate Release

9th April, 2023.

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS CONDEMNS TREASONABLE STATEMENT BY BRYAN ACHEAMPONG, DEMANDS HIS IMMEDIATE ARREST.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken notice of a statement made by Bryan Acheampong, MP for Abetifi and Minister for Food and Agriculture, to the effect that the ruling New Patriotic Party government will never hand-over power to the NDC.

In a viral video at a rally to climax a health walk organised by the New Patriotic Party at Kwahu in the Eastern Region on Saturday, April 8th, 2023, an event which was equally addressed by Vice President Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, the Minister is on record to have assured his party supporters of the determination of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government to hold on to power NO MATTER WHAT.

The NDC condemns this utterly reckless and treasonable comment in no uncertain terms. We note that Bryan Acheampong is the latest of high-ranking officials of the NPP to make such brazen statement that reveals the party’s deep-seated determination to subvert Ghana’s democratic order.

At an NPP delegates conference in Kumasi in 2021, President Akufo-Addo expressed his determination to “hand over to an NPP Government in 2025”. This eerily reminds everyone of the Nana Addo led desperate attempts to steal the 2008 elections in the strongroom of the electoral commission and other attempts by his desperate party to put dead bodies in water bodies in the Volta region all with a view to subverting the will of the people in that critical election.

At a similar NPP conference in Accra in 2022, Director of Operations at the Presidency, Lord Commey, speaking on behalf of the President stated the grand plan of the NPP, saying “the power I have, I will not hand it over today or tomorrow.”

These voices led by President Akuffo Addo himself, all but reveal the evil agenda of the NPP to hold on to power by hook or crook, even if the people of Ghana vote otherwise in the 2024 general elections.

These comments truly demonstrate a patterned, well-rehearsed strategy of the New Patriotic Party going into the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Having plunged our country into an unprecedented economic crisis – one defined by spiraling cost of living and complete insolvency as seen in our debt default, it has become clear that the NPP has decided that having lost the support of the people of Ghana, the only option left to remain in power is to reduce this country into a banana republic by suppressing the will of the people.

In furtherance of the above evil agenda, there has been a systematic bastardization of every single independent state institution under this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government. The once respected Electoral Commission has recently witnessed a new low, following the appointment of hardline New Patriotic Party activists into very sensitive positions in the Commission. This action by President Akufo-Addo has left many observers worried and helped to confirm that the ultimate agenda of the NPP is to use every desperate scheme to hold on to power at all cost.

The NDC, a party that both in the years 2001 and 2017, handed power to NPP when the people of Ghana voted for the NPP, wants to assure Ghanaians that we SHALL DO EVERYTHING that is necessary to protect the democratic will and the sovereignty of the Ghanaian people. We wish to assure the good people of Ghana of our resolve and readiness to do whatever is necessary to preserve the democratic will of the people- even at the peril of our lives. The supreme will of the Ghanaian electorate will be manifested come Dec 7, 2024.

As the political tradition that ushered in our nation’s stable constitutional order, the NDC will do whatever it takes to resist the misrule and machination of the oppressor and thus protect and preserve our democracy.

We urge the Ghana Police Service to act with dispatch in this matter. We recall the alacrity with which it recently apprehended and charged the Suame Constituency Youth Organiser of the NDC for expressing views that were deemed to be inciteful. No one is in any doubt that the statement of Bryan Acheampong is even more incendiary and subversive. We therefore expect the same level of speedy action from the Ghana Police Service in arresting Bryan Acheampong and bringing him to book.*

We equally urge voices of conscience in our country to condemn the statement made by not just Bryan Acheampong but also President Akuffo Addo and other officials of the ruling NPP government.

God bless our homeland Ghana and preserve her from the plague that the desperate NPP has become.

Signed,

Fifi Fiavi Kwetey

General Secretary